Switch power outlets on and off with home automation tools
Click Clack
The "If This Then That" web service lets you simply click together home automation components, instead of laboriously integrating them via their APIs. However, you still have to open the hood for the nitty gritty where applicable.
What's that? There's a gathering storm, and suddenly, as if by magic, the outside shutters on the house are pulled in? Oh, this must be home automation at work! Unfortunately, it's not that easy to integrate individual components in a smart home into a coherent overall system; many manufacturers like to do their own thing and deliberately don't play well with gadgets manufactured by the competition.
WeMo
I recently bought the WeMo Switch [1] on a whim (Figure 1). It can be used to switch electrical devices on and off, both mechanically and by using the mobile phone app either via local WiFi or over the Internet.
The remote switch generates its own WiFi signal with the identifier WeMo-xxx after plugging it into the wall socket. After downloading the iOS or Android mobile app (Figure 2) onto your smartphone and adjusting your WiFi setting to point to the temporary WeMo wireless signal, the app connects to the switch and prompts you to enter the SSID and password of your home WiFi.
[...]
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